Your project proposal should be 2-3 pages long. It should clearly describe the developmental architecture you will test, the environment and robot you will use in the experiment, your hypotheses about what you will find, and most importantly how you will analyze the results to demonstrate that some kind of development has actually taken place. Turn in your proposal at the start of class.
Be ready to demonstrate your robot and environment for the class on April 5th. Your program does not need to be completed at this point, but be prepared to describe the developmental architecture you will use, your planned experiment, and your hypotheses.
Be ready to demonstrate your working program for the class on April 12, and explain any interesting details of your implementation.
You should plan to give a 30 minute presentation about your project. Each group will be assigned to speak either April 19 or April 26. It may be the case that you are still running experiments at this point. However, you should have some preliminary results to report. If it is a team project, then each team member should speak for an equal portion of the time. You can use openoffice, which is available on the CS system, or powerpoint to create your presentation. I will have the department laptop available on presentation days. You should follow these guidelines (put together by Tia Newhall) when creating your talk.
Your grade will not be based on whether or not your experiment succeeds. Negative results are also useful. Your grade will be based solely on the thoroughness and readability of the paper. Do not turn in any programs. Bring your completed paper to my office.
The purpose of writing a research paper is to communicate your discoveries to others. It is important to explicitly acknowledge how your work relates to other work. This can be done either with a direct quotation from another source or by summarizing the key points from another source. You should avoid paraphrasing another source as this can border on plagiarism. When summarizing another source, explain the essential information in your own words.
When using the exact language from another source, you must use quotation marks. Or if you are using a passage that is more than four lines long, indent and single space the passage without quotation marks. For a direct quotation, provide a reference with a page number. When summarizing another source, you should also provide a reference, but a page number is not necessary.